'Inhumane' conditions at Atlanta's main prison: Justice Dept

Conditions at Atlanta's main prison are "inhumane, violent, and hazardous," a Justice Department official said Thursday following an investigation into the Fulton County Jail.

"Detention in the Fulton County Jail has amounted to a death sentence for dozens of people who have been murdered or who died as a result of the atrocious conditions inside the facility," Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said.

"We cannot turn a blind eye to the inhumane, violent, and hazardous conditions that people are subjected to inside the Fulton County Jail," Clarke said. "At the end of the day, people do not abandon their civil and constitutional rights at the jailhouse door."

In a report last month, the Justice Department said prisons in Georgia, of which Atlanta is the capital, are plagued by assaults, murder and sexual violence and officials in the southern state are "deliberately indifferent" to the horrible conditions.

The latest report focused on conditions at the Fulton County Jail, where former US president -- and now president-elect -- Donald Trump famously had his mug shot taken after being charged with conspiring to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

The Justice Department said living conditions in the Fulton County Jail do not meet basic constitutional standards and inmates are not adequately protected from threats of serious violence.

Prison guards routinely use force against inmates "without adequate justification" including the use of Tasers, the report said.

The Justice Department cited the case of an inmate who was "neglected to death" and died alone in a filthy cell in the mental health unit of the jail in September 2022.

Lashawn Thompson, who had a history of mental illness, was arrested for spitting at a police officer and then held on an outstanding warrant. He was found dead in his cell three months later, malnourished and infested with body lice.

According to the report, Black people are overrepresented in the jail, accounting for 91 percent of the inmates while making up only 45 percent of Fulton County's population of more than one million.

Georgia has the fourth-largest incarcerated population in the United States with nearly 50,000 people behind bars in 34 state-operated prisons and four private prisons.

The Georgia Department of Corrections reported a total of 142 homicides in its facilities between 2018 and 2023.